Monthly Archives: July 2018

The Lord cares for the righteous and watches over the merciful, is near when our hearts are broken; and when our spirits are crushed, God is with us. And though we may undergo hardships God fills us with blessings in the end. ~Psalm 34

My deep gratitude for the uplifting prayers! Knowing the Peace Congregation, Healing Team, Tai Chi class, and the full community of spiritual friends has been with me has been very special. My thanks to you all!

Our Thanks to Night Ministry Lyle Beckman for sharing last Sunday with us, and to the Nowell’s for their musical gifts. We will see more the John and MaryEllen while Pr. Steve and Gary are away this summer.

Welcome Pr. Lucy to the pulpit this week! She will be guiding us a few weeks this summer, along with Louis Mohelman, and perhaps another visit from Pr. Lyle.

Failure is an opportunity. If you blame someone else

there is no end to the blame.

Therefore, the Master fulfills her own obligations and corrects her own mistakes. She does what she needs to do and demands nothing of others.

From the Tao te Ching

Blessings, Pr. Steve

The writing below is a letter from a former Peace member, currently living in Maine and deeply connected to the immigration issue.

Dear Friends at Peace:

There are now three lawyer-level positions in my office besides my own position, plus a full-time admin and we just brought in two part-time interns. We are swamped.

My office has represented and is representing many, many Central Americans who are victims of gang violence. I cannot impress on people enough that these gangs are ruthless in ways that would have made SS soldiers blush. A 15 year old Guatemalan boy selected for recruitment by a gang (MS-13, MS-18) might be given three days to decide. Join or die. A lot of these boys leave the country during that three day period. The probability of death is very high if they stay. A store owner in Honduras is told to pay $800/month. If she doesn’t make a monthly payment, she’ll more likely than not be shot. Dead. No hesitation. No guilt. No willingness to listen to pleas for mercy. This is what’s going on.

And don’t even get me started on what goes on in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Congo-Kinshasa). Or Gabon, where political opponents are targeted for ritual occult murders, involving organ harvesting, BEFORE the victims die, as the harvested organs supposedly need to come from live bodies in order to be effective (per the witches/shamans/) for use in occult (i.e. satanic) practices. You can’t make this stuff up. We have two Gabonese cases with this kind of occult horror.

The Congolese cases tend to be political opponents of the Kabila regime. Joseph Kabila has no problem ordering the killing of opponents, though I suspect a lot of the killings are done by his underlings without any consultation with Kabila.

SO, my point–some people do come to the US with completely fraudulent stories. Most of the Sub-Saharan Africans come because torture and often death are their only options. At least the nationalities we see–Congolese (Kinshasa and Brazzaville), Angola, Gabon, Cameroon, Burundi (horrible place) and Rwanda. And the Central Americans (Guatemalans, Hondurans & Salvadorans) are leaving countries controlled in part by gangs that make the Italian mafia look genteel, if not charming, by comparison. In these countries there are really no ‘safe’ places to live once the gangs are after you. Their tentacles can reach anywhere.

The President has no clue about these things. He is just using the undocumented as a device to instill even more fear into his base, which is understandably afraid of the future. Who isn’t to some degree? Being afraid is not, however, an excuse to go after people who don’t look or act just like you.

Keep the immigrants in your prayers.

Best Regards,

George D. Hepner, III (former member and President of Peace Congregation)

Law Office of George D. Hepner III – 850 Main Street, Westbrook, Maine